Oh, lordy, can I bring the sad:
Context: New year's eve 1983. My friend Aiden's six year old brother was missing. There was another child, a six year old girl, missing as well. While the police were looking for these children my parents were having a New Year's party. Everybody at the party knew what was going on, though, so it was the most subdued new year's party ever.
Then, shortly before midnight, the phone call came that would forever change things. When it rang the party screeched to a halt and everyone looked at me. I picked up the phone and said, “Hello?”
It was Aiden, and he was crying uncontrollably. He finally managed to stammer out: “They found him. They found him in the lake. He went through the ice”.
“What do you mean, in the lake?” I could see the blood draining from the faces of everyone at the party. A few people gasped.
Aiden continued crying, then screamed into the phone “HE’S DEAD! HE DROWNED! THEY FOUND THEM BOTH IN THE WATER!”
At those words I started to choke up. I didn’t know what to say or do.
I said “Aiden...”
He cut me off. Still crying, he said “I’ve got to go, they want to use the phone. I’ll talk to you later. He’s dead, Carmen. Gone.”
And then he hung up.
Wait, is that not sad enough? Let's fast forward a few years, to the time that my friend and lover David had been involved in a fire at an equipment shed at a local athletic field. We were around 14 years old. I was in school at the time and the fire was so severe that they had to send students home due to the smoke. I circled back around because David and I had been using that shed for clandestine meetings and I had a bad feeling. When I got to the other side of the field, on the other side of the smoke, I could see paramedics working on David. He had been in the shed when it caught fire! The shed was burning and they had dragged David's severely burned form out of the fire. Paramedics had loaded him into an ambulance while I was talking to a police officer. He was asking me all kinds of questions about David and trying to find out why he was in that building. Then:
I gave the cop a shocked look. How did he know my name? I was about to ask that but the cop was reading my mind.
“David said exactly one word when he was first found. I don’t think he was even really conscious, just sort of half and half. He called out your name before completely losing consciousness again. At first we thought it was a girl’s name”, he said and started chuckling. He saw the look on my face and quickly straightened himself out. "That’s why I wanted to talk to you. You’re sure he didn’t say or do anything that might have given you a hint that he was going to do something like this?”
My heart was melting. He was almost dead and I was the first one he thought of!
“No, he didn’t. Nothing at all.”
Chase looked at me, then said “OK, then. Your last name and number please. If I need anything else from you I will call you.”
I gave him my name and number, and he started walking away when his portable radio crackled to life. Another cop was calling to inform Constable Chase that David was dead. His heart stopped beating during the ambulance trip to the hospital. When I heard the words I felt like my whole world had stopped. I stood there staring at the cop, who was staring back at me as if wondering what I was going to do. And that was my last memory of that scene.
Oh, wait. You said you wanted the SADDEST. OK, let's time skip to the year 2000. I was now an adult. Even though I was still in the closet I had a boyfriend and lots of gay friends. On Mother's Day one of those friends (whom I had dated briefly but broke it off due to his alcoholism) disappeared without a trace. Nobody knew where he had gone. The local gay community was frantic. And then (this conversation is formatted the way it is because it represents a conversation on an old internet chat program called IRC):
(Quique was Darryl's current boyfriend. Asterixx was my username on IRC. Troy was my boyfriend (and is currently my husband). Johnny was Darryl's ex. Mel was a mutual friend.)
Quique: I’ve been waiting all day for you to come online. I have to tell you something very important. You’re the only one I trust enough to tell this to. Please don’t say anything in open channel, and don’t say anything to Johnny or Mel. Or anyone, for that matter..
Asterixx: What’s wrong?
Quique: Promise me. Not a word to anyone. People could get in big trouble.
Asterixx: Ok, I promise. Troy is here reading this, though. Is that OK?
Quique: Yes, Troy is OK.
Quique: Carmen, they are not going to find Darryl.
Asterixx: What? What do you mean?
Quique: He’s dead, Carmen. He killed himself.
Troy gasped. I choked down a sob.
Asterixx: What? How? How do you know this?
Quique: He jumped off the MacDonald Bridge on Saturday night.
I felt like somebody pulled all of my insides out. I didn’t know what to say, but I had to say something.
Asterixx: Are you sure? How do you even know this?
Quique: Yes, I’m sure. Remember when I said that my father works for the bridge commission? He told me. The police came in requesting to see video footage of the sidewalks that night. Apparently it was clear as a bell: He ran along the sidewalk until he got to the middle, then climbed the barrier and jumped. It was over in the blink of an eye.
Asterixx: Oh my God. I can’t believe this. Does Johnny even know?
Quique: No, he doesn’t. And you can’t tell him. My father wasn’t even supposed to tell me, but he knew we had been dating. He could get fired for it.
That was 24 years ago. Darryl's body was never found. And Johnny still does not know what happened (here I will point out that I have changed all names in the book - Darryl, Johnny, etc, are not their real names).
